I believe the french very much did this. In the Napoleonic wars they mostly used conscripts I believe, so big blocks helped while the British had a more professionally setup army (not that all of its participants were willing either though!) tend to use thinner lines to maximise the shots they could get out.

That’s vulnerable to cavalry charges though, so they had square formations they could get into in order to protect against that.

Both sides then had skirmishers that had more modern tactics to harras and kill officers etc. Some even had rifles. They had to retreat back to the main body if there were cavalry anywhere near though.

One big, deadly game of rock paper scissors